MOSUL, Iraq (Reuters) – At least three members of Iraq’s security forces and one civilian were killed on Saturday in three separate attacks by militants, security sources said.
An army officer and soldier were killed when an explosive went off inside a house they were de-mining in the Sinjar district west of Mosul, and another soldier was injured.
In Diyala province a sniper shot dead an intelligence official in an area northeast of provincial capital Baquba, and a civilian was killed when a bomb went off inside his car in an area west of the city of Samara in Salahuddin province.
Islamic State has not claimed responsibility for any of the attacks but the group is active in all three areas.
Iraq declared victory over Islamic State, which once held large swathes of the country, in December 2017, but the hardline Sunni militants have since switched to hit-and-run attacks aimed at undermining the Baghdad government.
They have regrouped in the Hamrin mountain range in the northeast, which extends from Diyala, on the border with Iran, crossing northern Salahuddin and southern Kirkuk province, an area security officials call a “triangle of death”.
Reporting by Jamal Badrani; additional Reporting by Adam Hadi in Baquba and Ali Sultan in Sulaimaniya; Writing by Ahmed Aboulenein; Editing by Alexander Smith
